conga-test

Cat Stevens Wants to Know How You Like Your Congas: Light, Medium or Heavy?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Cat Stevens Available Now

During the shootout for this record a while back [the late 2000s would be my guess], we made a very important discovery, a seemingly obvious one but one that nevertheless had eluded us for the past twenty plus years (so how obvious could it have been?).

It became clear, for the first time, what accounts for the wide disparity in ENERGY and DRIVE from one copy to the next. We can sum it up for you in one five letter word, and that word is conga.

The congas are what drive the high-energy songs, songs like Tuesday’s Dead and Changes IV.

Here is how we stumbled upon their critically important contribution.

We were listening to one of the better copies during a recent shootout. The first track on side one, The Wind, was especially gorgeous; Cat and his acoustic guitar were right there in the room with us. The transparency, tonal neutrality, presence and all the rest were just superb. Then came time to move to the other test track on side one, which is Changes IV, one of the higher energy songs we like to play.

But the energy we expected to hear was nowhere to be found. The powerful rhythmic drive of the best copies of the album just wasn’t happening. The more we listened the more it became clear that the congas were not doing what they normally do. The midbass to lower midrange area of the LP lacked energy, weight and power, and this prevented the song from coming to LIFE the way the truly Hot Stampers can and do.

Now I think I understand why. Big speakers are the only way to reproduce the physical size and powerful energy of the congas (and other drums of course) that play such a big part in driving the rhythmic energy of the song.

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Another Great Conga Tester Title

Hot Stamper Pressings of Recordings by Rudy Van Gelder Available Now

The best pressings of Prelude are especially full-bodied and rich.

The congas are well up in the mix, which allows them to drive the powerful rhythmic energy of the music.

We know this because the copies with congas that were veiled or thin never seemed to have any get up go. 

There is wonderful transparency and openness to the soundstage, as well as less congestion in the loudest parts. Also Sprach (2001) is on side one of the album and it is KILLER on the best pressings.

Both sides can also be surprisingly sweet and Tubey Magical, nice qualities for a CTI record to have since so many of them are aggressive and edgy to the point of distraction.

Full, lively horns; rich, punchy, smear-free congas; fuzzy fuzzed-out guitars; as well as correct tonality and Tubey Magic in every area of the spectrum, what’s not to love?

The best pressings are so much bigger than most copies too. There is no doubt that you will hear the difference immediately. If you do a shootout with your best copy and ours plan on it being over almost before it starts.

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One Man Dog Is Another Good Conga Tester Title

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of James Taylor Available Now

If you have a Hot Side One for One Man Dog you will know it in a hurry. The guitars and congas will leap out of your speakers at the beginning of One Man Parade. If they don’t, forget it, move along to the next copy and keep going until you find one in which they do.

There are plenty of other, more subtle cues to separate the White Hots from the Supers and Hots, but if the sound doesn’t come to life right from the get go, it never will.

This reminded me of another record that can be judged by the jump-out-the-speaker energy of it congas, Teaser and the Firecat. An excerpt:

The congas are what drive the high-energy songs, songs like Tuesday’s Dead and Changes IV.

Here is how we stumbled upon their critically important contribution.

We were listening to one of the better copies during a recent shootout. The first track on side one, The Wind, was especially gorgeous; Cat and his acoustic guitar were right there in the room with us. The transparency, tonal neutrality, presence and all the rest were just superb. Then came time to move to the other test track on side one, which is Changes IV, one of the higher energy songs we like to play.

But the energy we expected to hear was nowhere to be found. The powerful rhythmic drive of the best copies of the album just wasn’t happening. The more we listened the more it became clear that the congas were not doing what they normally do. The midbass to lower midrange area of the LP lacked energy, weight and power, and this prevented the song from coming to LIFE the way the truly Hot Stamper pressings do.

The sound of the congas on many of the records we audition is a good test for some of the most important qualities we listen for: energy, rhythmic drive, presence and weight.

Congas, like drums and pianos, are good for testing records.

(Stereos too of course.)

If these instruments get lost in the mix, or sound smeary or thin, it’s usually fairly easy to hear those problems if you are listening for them. Most of what you will read on this blog is dedicated to helping you do that.

The richness of analog is where much of its appeal lies. Lean drums, congas and pianos are what you more often than not get with CDs.

These three instruments are also exceptionally good for helping you to choose what kind of speakers to buy. (We recommend big ones with large dynamic drivers.)

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Donny Hathaway Lives On Through His Masterful Live Album from 1972

More of the Music of Donny Hathaway

Hot Stamper Pressings of Soul, Blues and R&B Albums Available Now

This live recording has YOU ARE THERE sound. The soundstage is wide and deep. It’s so natural, rich and transparent, what is there to fault? 

Within moments of the needle hitting the groove your speakers disappear and the music just flows into the room.

On the best original domestic pressings you can immediately understand and appreciate the honest, emotive quality of his singing that made Donny Hathaway the tremendous performer he was known to be.

I’ve been playing this record regularly since I first heard it back in the mid-’90s and even after twenty years it has never failed to thrill. If I could take only one soul album to my desert island, it would be this one, no doubt about it.

Listening Test — Don’t Be Fooled

Pay close attention to the audience chatter and clapping. Most copies, being compressed and veiled, have no hope of reproducing the handclaps and audience shout-outs correctly. Only those copies with transparency and presence let you “see” the crowd clearly.

But don’t be fooled by thinner, leaner sounding copies. There is tons of low end and lower midrange in this recording — it’s one of its prime strengths, and it’s what it would have sounded like if you were there — so make sure you have plenty going on in the lower frequencies before you start evaluating the audience participation.

Many audiophile recordings and remasterings are leaner and cleaner, producing a phony kind of transparency and detail at the expense of the fullness and richness of the original recording.

This is almost never a good thing.

Listening Test — Conga Energy

The copies where the congas are up-front, punchy and full-bodied were the ones where the rhythmic energy really carried the day. You know it when you hear it, that’s for sure. Most copies failed in this regard to some degree. If you have more than one copy, see if you don’t hear quite a bit more energy on the copies with more prominent, solid-sounding congas.

Congas, like drums and pianos, are good for testing specific pressings as well as stereo equipment.

If these instruments get lost in the mix, or sound smeary or thin, it’s usually fairly easy to hear those problems if you are listening for them. Most of what you will read on this blog is dedicated to helping you do that kind of listening.

The richness of analog is where much of its appeal lies. Lean drums, congas and pianos are what you more often than not get with CDs.

These three instruments are also exceptionally good for helping you to choose what kind of speakers to buy. (We recommend big ones with dynamic drivers.)

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Listening in Depth to Joe Jackson – Balancing Night with Day

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Joe Jackson Available Now

There are basically four elements that go into the making of Night and Day: vocals; keyboards (mostly the piano); percussion (in the mids and highs) and rhythm (drums and bass).

No two copies will get all of these elements to sound their best. The trick to finding the hottest of the Hot Stamper pressings is to find copies of the album that reproduce these four elements clearly and correctly. They should be balanced with one another, and distributed throughout a large, three-dimensional studio space.

It may sound easy but I assure you it is not. With this many instruments in the mix, it’s a lot to get right.

Vocals

Pop records live and die by the quality of their vocals and Night and Day is no different in that respect. The vocals have to be front and center. Veiling in the midrange costs a fair number of points. They should also be smooth, not thin or edgy. I would rather have slightly veiled vocals relative to thin and edgy ones, but some copies manage to give you full, clear, present vocals, and those are the ones we tend to like the best.

Keyboards

When the sound is thin in the lower midrange and upper bass the piano will lose its weight and solidity. In the denser mixes it can easily get washed out, and nobody wants a washed out piano.

There is no guitar on this record. The piano carries much of the structural energy of the music. You need to be able to hear the piano clearly and hear that it is both full-bodied and percussive. (more…)